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Fox
Fox is a red fox who makes the journey from Farthing Wood to White Deer Park in both the books and the TV series. He is the leader of the animals on the journey and remains so when the animals reach the nature reserve. Fox appears in the first seven books and possibly appears at the end of Farthing Wood: The Adventure Begins, but this appearance is unconfirmed. If he does appear in the prequel, this would make Fox the only character to appear in all eight books. (Badger is the only one of the characters who journey to White Deer Park who definitely features in Farthing Wood: The Adventure Begins, but does not appear in The Fox Cub Bold.) He also appears in all 39 episodes of the TV series, the only character to do so. Books The Animals of Farthing Wood In the first book, it is Fox who decides that there should be an assembly of all the animals in Farthing Wood. During the assembly, it is decided that Fox should be the leader of the group during their journey to White Deer Park. Fox is a very democratic leader, regularly calling meetings between the representatives from each group of animals, and taking suggestions on how to deal with various situations. He cares deeply about all of the animals in the group, and feels responsible when two of the hedgehogs are killed while crossing the motorway. Fox becomes separated from the rest of the group when he and Badger are hit by a mass of debris while trying to help the rabbits cross the river. As he tries to get back to the group, he meets Vixen, who promises to accompany him while he searches for his friends. The two foxes take separate paths to find the group, and Vixen realises she wants to stay with Fox for good, but she is pursued by the hunt. Fox puts himself in danger to save her by getting the hunt's attentions while they have Vixen trapped in a wood, and both foxes are eventually saved by Adder when he bites one of the horses. Vixen then joins the group as Fox's mate, and Fox often seeks advice from her before making decisions for the rest of the group. In the Grip of Winter Fox remains leader of the group when the animals reach the park, and continues to look after all the animals once they've arrived. During the first winter, Fox asks The Great Stag if his herd can spare some hay for the smaller animals, and sends out a search party when Badger goes missing. He feels responsible once again when several of the smaller animals perish from the cold and lack of food. Fox himself becomes visibly thinner and much less healthy as the lack of food takes its toll on him, but he still joins Badger, Tawny Owl, Kestrel and Whistler on an expedition into a nearby town to find food. Fox also tries to help the White Deer herd when poachers arrive at the park to hunt them while The Warden is taken ill. He warns the deer when the poachers arrive and stops them from killing The Great Stag, but his actions cause the poachers to kill every fox they see in the park as an act of revenge. Fox comes up with a plan to get rid of the poachers and succeeds in luring them to the thawing pond, causing them to fall in and lose their rifles. The poachers return with handguns, but Fox finally rids the park of them once and for all by leading them to the Warden's cottage, where they are finally caught. Fox's Feud Fox and Vixen have four cubs called Bold, Charmer, Dreamer and Friendly, who quickly draw the attention of a mysterious fox called Scarface. Fox and Vixen soon discover that Scarface is jealous of their cubs (Bold in particular) and plans to kill them before they can become the dominant foxes in the park. Fox originally decides to ignore Scarface and stay away from his territory, but when Dreamer is killed Fox realises that he needs to take action and sets up a watch. When Bold is captured by Scarface and his family, Fox and Friendly go to rescue him, but Bold escapes on his own. After this, Fox sends Bold and Friendly to let Adder know that Fox wants Scarface dead, but they are not clear enough and Adder kills the wrong fox. Eventually, Scarface and his family launch an attack on the Farthing Wood animals, but they are forewarned and hide in Badger's set. Scarface finds them and Fox challenges him to a one-on-one duel to protect the other animals. Fox gets the better of Scarface and has the opportunity to kill him, but the Warden shows up and Fox lets Scarface go. Scarface is eventually killed by Adder, but Fox feels regret that he didn't kill him himself. Meanwhile, during the feud with Scarface, Charmer starts a relationship with Scarface's son Ranger, of which Fox disapproves. However, during Scarface's attack, Ranger finds the Farthing Wood animals and intends to tell his father the set is empty, but Scarface catches them. After this, Fox warms to Ranger and gives him his blessing to remain with Charmer. The Fox Cub Bold Fox only appears near the end of this book, when Charmer informs him of Whisper's arrival at the park. When Whisper tells them that Bold is dying, Fox and his family leave the park to find him and are informed of his whereabouts by Robber. Fox tells Bold how proud he is of his son and assures him that they will look after his cubs and tell them all about Bold's story. The Siege of White Deer Park When the animals first discover the presence of a fearsome creature in White Deer Park, Fox tells his friends to exercise caution and not to try and confront it. However, following the death of Husky, Fox decides that action must be taken and tells his friends to look out for clues of The Beast's whereabouts, and to spread the message to the rest of the park's inhabitants. After receiving a tip from Adder about a hole that the Beast may be living in, Fox leads a large group of animals there to try and spot it. After Toad had entered the hole to search for the Beast, Fox searches for another exit but stops the search when he hears the other creatures crying out. Fox sees the Beast showing utter contempt towards the other animals. After this, Fox stops believing that the animals can do anything about the Beast and starts to believe that the Warden is their only hope. However, after Tawny Owl finds one of the Beast's hiding places and is told by the Cat that he will leave if another animal spots him, Fox becomes optimistic again and spreads the word around the park to keep a look out for the Beast again. Fox then receives another tip from Adder that the Beast may be living underground, but nobody he asks has any idea of anywhere it might be. In the end, the Beast is called away by a female cat and Fox is relieved that the danger is over and looks forward to a long period of peace in the future. In the Path of the Storm Following the death of the Great Stag, Fox encounters Trey and is appalled by his arrogant attitude towards the rest of the animals in the park. Fox tells his friends that they should continue to live as they want to and not be intimidated by the threat posed by Trey, but to be cautious. When Trey tells the other animals that the pond is for the use of the White Deer only, Fox decides that they need to convince other stags to challenge him, but Trey still becomes leader of the herd and continues to threaten the other animals. Eventually, Fox decides that they need to stand up to him and so he takes the group of Farthing Wood creatures down to the pond to drink together. Trey and his heard are there when they arrive, but Fox instructs the animals to stand among the hinds to drink and Trey is unable to attack them. When the storm begins, Fox gathers all the animals in a disused set to shelter from it. Afterwards, Fox hears that Trey has been crushed by a tree in the hurricane and goes to see if he can help. He instructs the other stags to push the tree off Trey with their antlers and then he and Vixen search for the Warden to come and help him. Battle for the Park When the Farthing Wood animals discover that the brown rats have begun to enter the park, Fox tells his friends to kill them whenever they are seen and sends a message out to the rest of the park's residents to do the same. When Weasel and Plucky go missing from the park and Dash tells Fox about the new reserve, Fox leads a rescue party to save them, but they can find no way of getting them out. Fox later asks Whistler to airlift Weasel out of the new reserve, but he can think of no way to rescue Plucky until the young fox eventually escapes by himself. When the rats start to appear regularly in the Hollow, Fox organises regular attacks on them to drive them out of the Farthing Wood animals' home. The rats briefly retreat but when they return Fox comes up with an idea to leave trails of dead rats from the Warden's house into the park, in the hope that he will remove the danger. The rats finally launch an attack on the Hollow and Fox vows to fight them to the end. During the fight he seeks out Bully to deprive the rats of their leader, but Vixen beats him to it and kills Bully, tossing his body out of the park. Fox and Vixen then rejoin the battle and help to rid the park of the rats once and for all. Farthing Wood: The Adventure Begins It is unclear whether Fox appears in the prequel, set five years before the journey to White Deer Park begins. In the first book Fox mentions that his father was at the original Farthing Wood assembly, which takes place during the prequel. This means that his father must be either Lean Fox or Stout Fox, so it is possible that Fox is the sole surviving cub of Stout Fox and Stout Vixen who appears at the end of the book. TV series Series 1 Fox's role in the TV series is essentially the same as in the books, but with a few minor differences. When he is separated from the rest of the group in the first series, Fox travels through a town and meets a cat called Tom. Tom agrees to feed him, as long as Fox does the cat's duty by catching a few mice and rats to show to his master. Fox sleeps in a box, which is loaded onto a truck in the morning and takes him into the countryside. Later in the series, while the animals are travelling through the poisoned fields, Fox takes Vixen, Owl and Whistler into a nearby town to scavenge for food to feed the group. As he is raiding a dustbin, Fox is chased by a pair of dogs, but he loses them by crossing a railway line just as a train goes by, leaving the dogs on the other side. Fox is then separated from the group for a little while, but soon returns and warns them about the tractors spraying poison on the fields. In the final episode, several members of the group go missing after fleeing the church, including the rabbits who fall down a ledge into a construction site. After Rabbit proves too heavy for Whistler to lift up, Fox goes to their rescue, carrying them back up the ledge and back to the group. Series 2 When the animals arrive at White Deer Park, Fox and Vixen expect to be left to live in peace with no more responsibilities for the group. However, various problems with the park's residents result in the old group of animals arriving at Fox's new earth for help. Fox agrees to talk with the Great White Stag, who grants the Farthing Wood animals their own land. As winter arrives, staying on their own land means that Fox and Vixen can find very little to eat because of the oath, so they have to resort to eating crayfish caught by Whistler, before raiding a nearby town as they do in the books. Fox's feud with Scarface begins earlier than it does in the books, and Scarface is a threat to the Farthing Wood animals throughout the first winter. Scarface feels threatened by Fox's arrival at the park, but also resents the Great Stag's decision to give the Farthing Wood animals some of his land. The smaller animals start to lose faith in Fox as their protector and they jump to the conclusion that he ate Mrs Vole when she goes missing, until Weasel reveals it was Scarface. Fox's plan to get rid of the poachers is almost sabotaged by Scarface as he heads Fox off at the pond, but the ice breaks and he falls into the water just before the poachers themselves do. Fox also has another reason for opposing Charmer's relationship with Ranger in the TV series, stating that the relationship can't work because Charmer is red and Ranger is blue. Fox eventually sees past this prejudice when Charmer introduces Ranger to him and Ranger promises not to fight against him if it comes to an all-out war between their families. In the series, Fox is the reason for the departure of Bold from the park. After Bold escapes from Scarface's land and Fox returns from his meeting with Scarface and the Great White Stag, Fox turns on Bold, telling him that he must always stay where he can be seen and obey his orders. This causes Bold to leave the park, saying that he cannot stay there with Fox and he needs space to be himself. When Bold returns, Fox apologises for being hard on him and tells him that he is the bravest fox he has ever met, before Bold finally passes away. Series 3 By the third series, Fox has become very old and his role in the series is much smaller than it was in the previous two. After the Great White Stag dies and Trey tells the weasels that he can't stand the noise they make, Fox tells them that he agrees with Trey and is annoyed with them himself for the same reason. This causes Weasel and Measley to leave the park so that their offspring can be brought up somewhere they can make as much noise as they like. Fox later regrets this turn of events as he believes the weasels could be a great help in the animals' battle against the rats. Later in the series, Fox is visited at his earth by Bully, who tells Fox and the other Farthing Wood animals to leave the park, but Fox refuses and vows to kill Bully before they are interupted by Hurkel. On many occasions during the series, Fox becomes very pessimistic about the animals' chances of defeating the rats, feeling that there are too many of them to kill no matter how many times the animals attack them. After the demise of Trey, Fox and several of the other animals support Laird at the rut to decide the next leader of the herd. When Laird is victorious, Fox fornally acknowledges Laird as the new park's new leader and Laird promises that they will all live together in peace and friendship. At the end of the series, after winning the battle against the rats, Fox decides to step down as the leader of the Farthing Wood animals. Fox appoints Plucky as the new leader, saying that through him there is a link to the original spirit of Farthing Wood. After this Trey returns to inform the animals that the two reserves have been combined and agrees to show Fox the new larger reserve. Appearances Books *''The Animals of Farthing Wood'' *''In the Grip of Winter'' *''Fox's Feud'' *''The Fox Cub Bold'' *''The Siege of White Deer Park'' *''In the Path of the Storm'' *''Battle for the Park'' *''Farthing Wood: The Adventure Begins'' (unconfirmed) TV series *Series 1 *Series 2 *Series 3 Category:Book characters Category:TV characters Category:Foxes